THE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR
The attack on Pearl Harbor, a day never to be forgotten | 1:16

On December 7, 1941 the United States was changed forever as a massive attack was launched, it would become a prelude to our participation in World War II. Here is a breakdown of the losses we suffered that fateful day.
USA TODAY

Times of crisis often bring out the best in orators. USA TODAY Network looks back at some other famous quotes from the World War II era — both before and after the "date which will live in infamy."
USA TODAY

Robert J. Kinderman heard for years the stories of how his dad survived the sinking of the USS Oklahoma. Fearing they may be lost forever, he put them to paper.

His dad, Robert R. Kinderman, was one of the Oklahoma’s crew when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

Twenty years ago, knowing his father one day would no longer be here to tell his story, the younger Kinderman took notes about the shipmates' stories of that Sunday morning in Hawaii. He eventually wrote an essay to keep the memories of the day, and the people who were there, alive for another generation.

“If we don’t continue to carry on the stories and legacy of what happened, it will fade into history and out of memory,” said Robert J. Kinderman, a 62-year-old retired teacher and high school principal who lives in Trego, a small town in northwestern Wisconsin. “Those stories are leaving us now, but I have to believe there are a lot of people like myself who believe it’s important we keep telling these stories we remember.”

While stories like Kinderman’s have been saved, others have been lost with the passing of the millions of Americans who served, or supported, the war effort. Oral histories like the ones preserved in the Kinderman family can bring a human element to a global event, which spurred the U.S.'s entry into World War II and changed the face of history.

"It's getting those personal stories that really makes these events seem more realistic and helps people learn from them when they can connect with an individual who was actually there," said Ellen Brooks, an oral historian with the Wisconsin Veteran's Museum in Madison.

'A violent, deafening explosion'

Robert R. Kinderman was born and lived his life in Oshkosh, living through the Depression and service in the Civilian Conservation Corps. He joined the Navy in 1939 and was assigned to the USS Oklahoma when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor just before 8 a.m. on Dec. 7.

Robert R. Kinderman, an Oshkosh native who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor, photographed with his grandmother.(Photo: Photo courtesy of Robert J. Kinderman)

“With no warning a violent, deafening explosion rocked the Oklahoma knocking me off my feet,” the elder Kinderman recounted in the essay reconstructing the day’s events. “I landed hard on the deck not knowing what had happened. Seconds later another explosion again knocked me down.”

War with Japan seemed inevitable in the months leading up to the attack 76 years ago. On the morning of Dec. 7, after sailing for 11 days, the planes of a Japanese task force took off the decks of aircraft carriers with sights sets on the U.S. Pacific fleet and military installations on the Hawaiian Islands.

The attack left 2,335 sailors, soldiers, and Marines — and 68 civilians — dead. In its wake, a sizable portion of the U.S. Pacific fleet was destroyed or damaged, including the Arizona, USS Oklahoma and USS Utah.

Four hundred and twenty-nine sailors and Marines died on the Oklahoma.

As the attack began to unfold, the Oklahoma’s crew crammed passageways in a scramble to man battle stations and fight back against the attacking aircraft. The Oklahoma continued to be rocked by explosions and began to capsize. Trapped below deck behind watertight doors, Robert R. Kinderman drew on his memory of the ship to find a way out.

A ventilation shaft provided potential salvation.

“The duct was only big enough for a man to fold his arms in and creep forward,” the essay recounted. “This was only possible as the duct became increasingly horizontal as the ship rolled over.”

The capsized hull of USS Oklahoma (BB-37), with a barge alongside to support rescue efforts, probably on 8 December 1941. USS Maryland (BB-46) is at right, and USS California (BB-44) is in the center distance. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.(Photo: (Photo: U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command))

Seven sailors used the vent to escape and reach the nearly vertical deck and side of the ship, where they faced the possibility of being strafed by attacking aircraft, oil fires on the water and continued explosions.

Kinderman found himself on a small boat with other sailors and began pulling wounded and burned men from the water as they made their way to Ford Island to drop off the wounded. They headed back out to help more sailors, but the boat was severely damaged from strafing and the ad-hoc crew chose to ground the boat.

“Later that evening I made my way to an outdoor area where hundreds of survivors were having our wounds treated. For many of us our ships, our homes, were gone,” Kinderman said in the essay. “Most importantly, our shipmates, our brothers, were dead, many — especially from the USS Arizona and Oklahoma — trapped in underwater graves.”

'I wish a million times … I had him here today'

Robert R. Kinderman survived the war, was recalled for the Korean War, and spent his life raising three kids and working at Rockwell International in Oshkosh. He returned to Pearl Harbor in 1991 and died in 1999.

“I wish a million times, like everyone does, that I had him here today to ask him more to-the-point questions,” his son said in a telephone interview this week. “I can just imagine how many things I don’t have a clue about.”

Robert R. Kinderman’s wife, Margaret, still lives in Oshkosh. His son continues to tell his dad’s story, from Pearl Harbor through his survival of the sinking of the USS Hull in a December 1944 Typhoon in the Pacific (the elder Kinderman was one of 62 survivors).

The Wisconsin Veterans Museum has about 2,100 interviews with veterans from World War I through recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than half of those interviews are with World War II veterans, Brooks said.

"I'm always interested in how different people experience the same event," she said.

Variables in stories can run the spectrum from distance to the event, memory and the personality of the person telling the story.

"Oral history levels the playing field in a way. It gives people who might not necessarily have a chance to have a voice in the story that voice," Brooks said. "It also allows us to see through so many different people's eyes. We don't get that anywhere else."

Like the veterans museum, the Experimental Aircraft Association in Oshkosh has collected thousands of first-hand accounts of historical events as part of its Timeless Voices program.

"We try to capture as many stories as we can because it's up to us, after that generation is gone, to continue to tell that story," said Chris Henry, Museum Program Coordinator at with the EAA Museum. "If we continue to tell that story, those lessons are truly never gone."

Much of Kinderman's story was constructed from notes taken during a 1997 meeting between Robert R. Kinderman and a close shipmate, Louis Mathieson, at Mathieson’s home in Maine. The two men discussed and compared their memories of the events of the day, which helped the younger Kinderman write his account.

Robert J. Kinderman, an author of several books, including children’s books, said by telling his dad’s story, he aims to keep the memory and actions of the people at Pearl Harbor alive. He also hopes it may lead other veterans, of other wars, to share their stores.

“In my tiny little way of trying to tell this story about Pearl Harbor, hopefully other people will step up to the plate to talk about Vietnam down the road ... so we don’t lose that awareness of what terrible prices we pay for the things we take for granted, and (so we) enjoy every day,” he said.